of your enemies. They see with immense displeasure your royal ensigns
planted on the most important place on the Rhine, and one which would
become the chief military station for all the armies of Flanders to
assemble in at any moment.

"As no acquisition could therefore be greater, so your Majesty should
never be deprived of it without thorough consideration of the case. The
Archduke fears, and so do his ministers, that if we refuse to restore
Wesel, the United Provinces would break the truce. For my part I
believe, and there are many who agree with me, that they would on the
contrary be more inclined to stand by the truce, hoping to obtain by
negotiation that which it must be obvious to them they cannot hope to
capture by force. But let Wesel be at once restored. Let that be done
which is so much desired by the United Provinces and other great enemies
and rivals of your Majesty, and what security will there be that the same
Provinces will not again attempt the same invasion? Is not the example
of Julich fresh? And how much more important is Wesel! Julich was after
all not situate on their frontiers, while Wesel lies at their principal
gates. Your Majesty now sees the good and upright intentions of those
Provinces and their friends. They have made a settlement between
Brandenburg and Neuburg, not in order to breed concord but confusion
between those two, not tranquillity for the country, but greater
turbulence than ever before. Nor have they done this with any other
thought than that the United Provinces might find new opportunities to
derive the same profit from fresh tumults as they have already done so
shamelessly from those which are past. After all I don't say that Wesel
should never be restored, if circumstances require it, and if your
Majesty, approving the Treaty of Xanten, should sanction the measure.
But such a result should be reached only after full consultation with
your Majesty, to whose glorious military exploits these splendid results